Many types of activities require the use of protective covering to guard a user's body against the impact of potentially damaging objects. Generally speaking, the covering material for the protective gear should be hard or resilient to withstand impact and sharp objects, the gear should be shaped to correspond to the shape of the body parts to be protected, and the gear should be articulated for unrestricted movement of the limbs.
Sports-oriented protective body guards are well known. U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,261 to Hefling discloses protective gear for contact sports, which comprises a plurality of interlocking segments. Each segment comprises an upper part and a lower part. Adjacent segments are made to overlap such that the upper part of one segment overlays the lower part of the adjacent segment. Adjacent segments are interconnected by means of holes in their lateral posterior portions. The holes are aligned when the adjacent segments are overlapped and a pivot pin extends through the holes on both overlapping segments. This allows adjacent segments to pivot in relation to one another and to allow the upper part of one segment to slide over the lower part of the adjacent segment. Hefling also discusses the provision of elongated slots in the lateral posterior portion of the segments and stop pins extending through the slots and into holes in the adjacent segment.
The Hefling design enables flexing and extension of the joint. However, most joints have a more complex mode of articulation than simply flexing and extension. For example, many members may also rotate about their joint, which the Hefling design does not accommodate despite Hefling's stated object of achieving a full range of motion. In some cases, a full range of unrestricted joint motion over its several types of movement is extremely important. This is the case for example for tree fellers who need unrestricted joint movement while climbing and felling trees using heavy chain saws, for various sports, and for other activities.
There is therefore still a need for a protective body guard which provides a full range of motion that tracks more closely the bio-mechanical movement of a joint, while still ensuring continual coverage of the body parts and protection against such sharp objects as the blades of chain saws and other power tools, and protection against falls onto sharp objects and abrasive surfaces.